A couple of days ago, I had a little rant on Facebook about the time that middle school teachers spend teaching the proper technique for footnotes. Even in high school, a large portion of Jonah’s history grade is based on his footnoting technique. I wrote that since time is finite, social studies had to prioritize their efforts. It seemed like knowing facts, ie the date of the civil war, the location of Iraq, and the difference between a senator and a governor, was more important than knowing the proper methods of citations. After all, footnotes aren’t exactly necessary in real life.
This led to a big debate, with comments not just from my history and political science professor friends, but from everyone. It was surpring to me how many of my non-teacher-type friends had strong feelings about this, too.
I also complained that I’ve been to too many education presentations where the experts said that students didn’t really need to know these facts, since they could look it up on wikipedia. Skills was more important than knowledge of information.
Well, it seems like kids aren’t learning skills OR facts in their social studies class, according to the latest results of NAEP testing.
In 2014, eighteen percent of eighth-graders performed at or above the Proficient level in U.S. history, 27 percent performed at or above the Proficient level in geography, and 23 percent performed at or above the Proficient level in civics.
Check out the test on their website. It seems like a fair test.
Texas is the only state that mandates civics education. Should other states follow their lead?
Apt. 11d 
Nebraska used to mandate “Nebraska History Day,” which helped me learn about George Norris as well as the guy who won the Scopes trial.
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My students are depressingly ignorant about civics.
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Although I am a believer in knowing stuff, I am wary of using arbitrary short quizzes to be depressed about “kids today.” In your FB feed, someone expressed horror that the “kids today” couldn’t identify a picture of Carter. I am actually pretty horrified about that, but then, I thought about whether I can identify a picture of a one term president who served forty years before I was born. And, I’m pretty certain that my ID of Calvin Coolidge would have been pretty iffy.
I think kids need to know how America works, and i think that means knowing some facts, but I don’t know which set I would prioritize over all others.
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Coolidge, I can do. Wilson, I can do. Picture of Harding – I can’t pick him out of a line-up for the life of me. I even LIKE Harding – he was anti-lynching and by the standards of the time very progressive on race, as opposed to the vile racist Wilson. But as far as an image, haven’t got one.
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I can recognize Harding, ’cause he was one of the Ohio presidents. 🙂
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When I was in public high school (greater Portland, Oregon metro area in the late 1970s), the curriculum for seniors included a year-long citizenship class. It was tracked: A track was just American history, B track was history and how government works, and C track…well, C track was about how to analyze what speech was really saying, including advertising and politics. I’ve never learned so much so fast. We had a terrific teacher who mostly led discussions and used the Socratic method just enough to give us a chance to exercise the skills he was teaching us.
I may not be able to identify *any* presidents but by G-d I can tell when a politician is lying, and really, I think that’s more important. Thank you Mr. Bill Pressley, the best teacher I’ve had in any subject in my entire life.
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Totally biased here (as a political science professor), but I am definitely on the yes side. I teach at a public institution of higher ed, and the overwhelming majority of our students stay here in our state. Yet probably less than 1/4 of them have any kind of class in political science, American history or civics generally. I can confirm the results of these quizzes with my over 15 years of teaching – it’s really depressing how little the students know.
I teach an upper level class on Massachusetts Politics – students love it – but I can only teach it once every 4th semester because of other teaching duties. I think if more people had to take classes like this, they’d be more pissed off about things like the story in the Globe today about how the leaders in our statehouse basically make all the legislators kowtow to them to get their pork passed:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/07/behind-closed-doors-state-budget-extras-win-support/2naCHsd718tlIGhzZaVhTI/story.html
It’s insanely ridiculous and made possible in large part because people don’t know much about or follow this stuff. I routinely tell my students that I don’t care if they remember specific dates or facts (because they can look them up), but if they pay attention to politics and participate to hold elected officials accountable once they leave my institution, then I will have done my job.
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Shannon, by any chance would you be willing to share your syllabus for your Mass Politics course? I feel like I need it, but I bet my daughter would also enjoy it. My email is available if you click my name.
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Wendy: I’d be happy to, but your name isn’t hyperlinked here for me. Just drop me a line at sjenkins at umassd.edu. Obviously, replace that at with an @
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Well Ohio has a mandated one-semester high school class titled “American Government” that I always assumed was civics (I won’t know for sure until next year when my kid takes it). So if you tested eighth grade Buckeyes, you might not get as good results as if you waited until they were in twelfth grade.
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After all, footnotes aren’t exactly necessary in real life.
I have heard from my oldest, and a cousin’s child, that plagiarism can have severe consequences at the university level. I’m not defending the allocation of time in the classroom, but a failure to adequately document sources can derail a college career. This may be a local issue. I would have been happy for our oldest child to have received more instruction in writing research papers.
I also complained that I’ve been to too many education presentations where the experts said that students didn’t really need to know these facts, since they could look it up on wikipedia. Skills was more important than knowledge of information.
I agree wholeheartedly. Wikipedia is often wrong, especially when the student is looking for present day politicians or controversial issues. I’ve also found that educators love the “Did You Know? Shift Happens” video–I regard it as a sign fuzzy education fads are about to be presented, when an educator runs that video.
(On the other hand, most of the Common Core curriculum seems to be aiming for students to possess certain skills, rather than knowledge.)
No matter what happens in the world of the future, yes, students need the framework of knowledge to make sense of it. My children have often lamented, “if they want us to know something, why don’t they teach us?” When my oldest child reached AP US history, she found it very useful–“It helps to understand the world.”
However, I believe the Common Core standards avoided setting standards for science and history on purpose–some topics in those areas are too controversial to tackle.
Kinda like sex ed. I have not heard any complaints about our local public sex ed program. Which means (I realized later) it manages to avoid anything controversial. My oldest could explain the advantages of multiple methods of birth control. Abstaining from sex was a centerpiece of the class. She did not, however, recognize the word “heterosexual.” They seem to have mostly watched movies which were the sex ed equivalent of the old car crash video shown students to discourage drinking and driving.
Instruction in this area could be radically improved by requiring history, not social studies. Unfortunately, that would require teachers to know history. Elementary teachers are usually generalists, not specialists. It’s easier to teach from a packaged curriculum than field questions from curious children about historical events.
Some of the most interesting and educational experiences my kids have had have been classroom history or economics games. (real life, with classmates, not computers.) Diplomacy, for example. See: https://sites.google.com/site/howtodosimulationgames/further-resources.
And many high school students love participating in Model UN, Debate or Moot Court. If I were dictator, I would transform history/social studies to require such activities of all students.
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I hate that video. But I hate it ’cause it implies that we are going to deal with the incredibly globalized world and talent that is now present and available and developed around the world by somehow doing it better here in the US. Anything we can do here, China and India will do, too. As well as Qatar (which recently joined Destination Imagination in a big way). We aren’t going to compete against the world by somehow being more creative/imaginative/. . . . then the rest of the world.
(And, yes, it’s used as an excuse to not do something, rather than a reason to do something, much of the time).
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